The blog will offer purely objective and candid analyses for a better understanding of the events that keep happening and that provide dynamism and direction to the flow of the history and development of the human societies. Being a forum, the comments and opinions from readers whether for or against the views expressed in it, are gratefully welcome. Suggestions for improving the blog are welcome.

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Minorities under Attack in Pakistan

August 23, 2012

By Saeed
Qureshi

What happened in Astor? On the road leading to Gilgit, three buses were waylaid at a place near Babusar pass by the heavily armed fanatic Muslims. The passengers were disembarked, and lined up. Those discovered to be Shias were gunned down. The spine chilling tragedy is so
ghastly as to make one speechless. It’s difficult to describe the barbaric
enormity of this carnage that spatters blood on the already bloody face of Pakistan.

This is one of those umpteen ugly
manifestations of bigotry, sectarian hatred and prejudice based vendetta that are
now fast mushrooming all over Pakistan. If this frightening intolerance and
bigotry is allowed to escalate, Pakistan would turn into battleground for
sectarian Armageddon. Can the Sunni radicals liquidate all the Shias and vice
versa all the Sunnis could be eliminated by Shias?

The teenage Christen girl Ramsha’s case and
her arrest for allegedly burning the papers with Quranic writings is so pathetic
and heart wrenching. It shows how the people turn wild on such gossips without
pondering that their reaction does no good to Islam and the Muslims. Islam is
larger than life and if it can be desecrated or threatened by a young girl with
no knowledge of Islam or the papers she might be burning, then we must lament
our vision of Islam.

The most persecuted minority is that of
Ahmadis who are constitutionally declared as non Muslims. They are killed and
their worshipping places are attacked from time to time. Of late their grave
yards were ransacked and the inscriptions written on the graves were erased. Minarets of their worshipping places were
demolished and Arabic writings white-washed. This community is becoming
Diaspora and seeking asylums in other countries.

The Hindus mostly inhabited in Sindh are also
not safe as a religious minority. The statements of certain Hindu pilgrims to
India indicated the maltreatment and discrimination they were being subjected
to by powerful majority religious sections. They alleged incidences of
kidnapping of Hindus, and their forced conversion to Islam. Even otherwise we
have been reading about their houses attacked and rampaged with casualties.

Islam
enjoins security and other rights to the minorities. Unfortunately we Muslims
suffer from a lurking paranoid that Islam is always in danger and prone to be
desecrated. Deplorably the Quran is being used by the unscrupulous Muslims to
settle their scores with non-Muslims or with the challengers of their vested interests.
No Muslim not even the enlightened are ready to take Ramsha’s word as credible
and forgive her when that innocent soul swears that she did not know if she was
doing something wrong.

This year in September, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi’s gunmen stopped a bus and
killed 26 Shia pilgrims travelling on a bus in Balochistan province. The
attackers were reported to have checked the identity cards of all the
passengers before removing the Shias and shooting them. In February gunmen
killed 18 Shia bus passengers in a sectarian attack in the northern district of
Kohistan.

Five security personnel were killed in suicide attack in Quetta. On the
morning of August 16, religious Militants attacked Pakistan Air Force Kamra
Airbase at Kamra near military headquarters in Rawalpindi and remained engaged
in a fierce gun battling with security forces for several hours. Precious lives
were lost.

Elsewhere in Pakistan in a continuous orgy of
blood and inextricable cycle of violence citizens are losing their lives because
of sectarian strife. Side by side citizens are killed by robbers, bandits and extortionists.
One can walk into a shop with a gun and rob the shopkeepers at free will. Invariably
the houses are broken in, the inmates held hostage, the women raped and the assailants
decamp with money and jewelry.

More deaths accrue from the revenge killings between
the feuding groups associated with political parties and regional roughnecks filled
with hatred for their fellow citizens. Karachi and Quetta, among other cities
rank highest in the target killings of marked individuals and groups. Hazara Shias are wantonly murdered in Balochistan by
premeditated shootings and ambush attacks.

These are some
of the latest events that suggest how fragile the law and order situation has
become in Pakistan. One would tend
to draw an inescapable inference that a nasty and diabolic game is being
orchestrated and staged by the parties that want Pakistan to be rendered totally
dysfunctional and crippled. Patently the sectarian, regional, ethnic fires are consuming
this country and paving way for the renegade forces to balkanize it.

The
religious frenzy and sectarian hate is assuming frightening dimensions as to
render the human life as insignificant as a worm. Humans are known to turn
barbarians but that stigma was exclusive to the past societies. The recurring
massacre of Shias can be consigned to the sectarian madness, but what about the
surging violence, devouring the lives of the people for other reasons. The
hopes and aspirations of the residents are fading away about the sanctity and
security of their life, limb and properties. But did ever any government or its
functionaries seriously try to stem the raging tide of sectarianism and the
religious right’s bulging influence over the society.

Customarily, there have been bland and inane
vows by the law enforcement bosses with regard to hunting the perpetrators and salvaging
the society from their bloody clutches. As a matter of fact the hateful
culprits are gleefully having a good time in carrying out their monstrous feat.
It is the worthless people of Pakistan who are living in an inferno and constantly
exposed to a thousand dangers.

The interior minister, Rehman Malik possesses
the inimitable knack of amazing composure after each and every tragedy that
swallows precious lives. While making such farcical statements there is always
a slight smile hanging on his faces that not even the best expert in
physiognomy can decipher.

That begs the serious question about the
incumbent government’s ability and even intention to provide a modicum of worthwhile
governance for social peace and enforcement of law. The exacerbating situation
bears no visible indications of being arrested or contained. The law and order
has gone to dogs, the country is in the throes of a civil war and the society
is infested with all brands of clandestine terrorists and saboteurs. The law
enforcement network is broken, rather over-worked and utterly incapable of dealing
with even small emergencies.

The people are starving, the prices are sky
rocketing, the gas is being switched off; the commodities are scarcer and
getting out of the purchasing ability of the citizens. The sanctity of life has
become a laughable cliché. Living in the presidential mansion or prime
minister’s well guarded palatial residence presents a detestable contrast with
the life of a common man. The citizens come out of the houses with a mind torn
by the phobias of lurking suicide bombers to strike him in a nook, on a bus
stand and in a shopping center.

Democracy
sans safety and accountability is a base coin with no worth. The leaders and
the rulers better give security, accountable, efficient, and people-friendly governance
to the citizens and take away the charade of democracy that survives on the
blood of the citizens.

There is a pervasive and growing disenchantment
with the viability of the country. If at all anyone can be pointed at as anti-Pakistan
or unpatriotic, it is not the public but the powerful and the privileged
classes. The harassed people and paralyzed intelligentsia are not to blame if
they pose questions as to how the country was being run and whether this
downward calamitous drift would ever be checked or that country’s survival was
at stake.

The cronyism, the foreign intelligence outfits
and their insidious plot to destabilize Pakistan may be roses to the rulers but
not to the traumatized people of Pakistan. How could the sublime ideal of national
solidarity glow if the callous extinguishers are bent upon blowing it off?

Let us all candidly admit that Pakistan is in
a mess, a mammoth and deep mess. The leadership consists of money grabbers, the
shameless opportunists, the rank liars, the pledge brokers, the political
dwarfs, the spineless foreign agents and fifth columnists. The people are flabbergasted,
dumbfounded and losing their sense of proportion in the face of a dancing
Dracula of death everywhere. If the prayers can matter, let there be peace in
Iraq and in Afghanistan or at least Shia procession must have been spared by
their divinities from the repeated nightmares. Then what’s the way-out:
honestly I don’t know. I am dizzy and losing my sanity.

Before an open civil war breaks out, the
government should move fast to hand over the task of restoring peace in Karachi
to the army. The rangers and the police have failed in rooting out the crime
and violence from Karachi. Invariably the action by the law enforcement
agencies is to cordon the affected areas after the incidence of crime and then
leave after some time. It would be ridiculous and futile to expect of them to
sincerely put out the flames of ethnic and sectarian killings and stamp out
deadly feuding, if the criminals, mafias, murderous gangs, terrorists and sharp
shooters are being aided by the politicians and rogue feudal classes.

The army has been so far sitting on the
sidelines. The army has an organizational structure, the array of weapons and
is chartered to fight. It can therefore effectively neutralize the anti-state
elements within a short time as they did in Swat.

It has the capability to clear the Karachi
metropolis from the thugs, killers, mercenaries, the illegal immigrants, the
warring gangs, the drug and weapon mafia, the sectarian terrorists and similar
enemies of peace and for that matter of Pakistan.

The army knows how to deal with such a
volatile situation. If required it can impose a curfew with intervals, for a
limited period of time (say two months) and set up military courts for speedy trials.
The whole country or at least main cities should be deweaponized. The citizens
should be encouraged to send their anonymous reports about the whereabouts and
names of the criminals and rogues in their areas. This strategy would equip the
army with most of the data about saboteurs, outlaws, bandits and outlaws making
easy their job of purging them in Karachi and elsewhere in the country.

The known criminals with incontrovertible
evidence can be dealt with by summary trials and put to death by firing squads.
The suspects can be kept in custody, interrogated and if proven guilty should
be given heavy jail terms or shot depending upon the nature and severity of the
crimes.The politicians and powerful
individuals if found accomplices of the outlaws, should also be dealt with the
similar unsparing yardstick. They should also be given death sentences or
incarcerated for their complicity.

In order to avoid the above recourse to
military action to curb lawlessness, the government should convene all parties’
conference to hammer out a permanent solution to establish durable peace and
order in Karachi particularly and elsewhere generally. The government should stop
churning out false pledges to stamp out violence.

It is indispensible to rein in exploding
sectarianism for the integrity of the country, survival of the civil society,
effective governance and safety of the people. It is imperative also to
reestablish writ of the state that is being eroded inter alia by militants,
holy warriors, miscreants, anarchists, crime mafias, gangsters, regional militias,
external string pullers and so on.

4 comments:

As always you brought up a timely and internationally vital issue that needs attention of Pakistani leadership. What is going on against minorities is against the spirit of Pakistan and edicts of Islam. Then why should such things happen in the Islamic country. Let me quote Jinah on religious minorities in Pakistan. Jinah was the Founder of Pakistan and had Pakistani interests deep in his heart.Mr. Patrick French highlighted Quaid-i-Azam’s political vision for a democratic Pakistan. He quoted at length from his address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on August 11 1947 to establish that Quaid-i-Azam wanted to see a democratic system in the newly created Muslim state. While addressing the Constituent Assembly, Quaid-i-Azam said: “You may belong to any religion or caste or creed - that has nothing to do with the business of the state...We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one state... Now I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will find that in the course of time, Hindus will cease to be Hindus and Muslims will cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the state.”

I am glad to notice that you appreciate my humble efforts in bringing to fore this most pressing issue in Pakistan that if persists can inflict irreparable harm to that wonderful country. I endorse your valuable views and would expect that the leaders in Pakistan realize the gravity of the emerging crisis and tackle it before it burnt open like a tsunami.Regards,Saeed Qureshi

Let me give you a contrasting event. India is often reported as a country often threatened by religious strife and conflicts. This is a heart-warming story about how in a small town of Northern India, Sikhs who are themselves a minority, invited the Muslims to pray in the hall of their Gurudwara on Eid-ul-Fitr. Town of Garhwal under Himalayas has a Muslim population of some 800 people. There is no mosque or idgah in the town; Muslim residents usually offer prayers at the Gandhi Ground, a public ground. This year on Monday, Eid-ul-Fitr, the town was hit by torrential rain and therefore the Muslims were unable to offer prayers at the Gandhi Maidan. The head of the local Gurudwara invited the Muslims to offer their Eid Namaz at the Gurudwara premises. The Muslims on Eid offered their ritual prayers at the Gurudwara hall and were greeted by the members of the Sikh community. In the Hindu majority town Sikh minority reaffirmed faith in humanity by a simple gesture -- helping a brother out on a rainy day. Mind you, only a few weeks ago I circulated a news item reporting how Punjabi Sikhs restored many mosques in Punjab to their Muslim communities. These mosques were watched for several years after partition until return of Muslims to Punjab villages so that they can take over their use. Sikhs contributed men and material to restore the neglected mosques including one, Sikh Guru Hargobind Sahib, built for the Muslim inhabitants of the new town he founded centuries ago. Gurdwara is open to all for prayer and service to humanity. We are pleased with this gesture by the Indian Sikhs in the area where Muslim friends did not have a mosque of their own. To follow the Sikh tradition that began in the times of our Gurus, the local Sikhs will contribute towards building a mosque for the local Muslims. Let us emulate this example in every country beginging with Pakistan. – Harbans Lal

Your story about Sikhs offering their Gurdwara to Muslims to observe the Eid prayers is fascinating and indeed very inspiring. This is a message of loving humanity across the board. I hope this event and goodwill gesture would serve as beacon and shining example for other religious entities in India so as to live in peace and harmony after much bloodshed, strife and confrontation. Thank for enlightening me about this sublime initiative of Sikhs.Saeed Qureshi

About Me

Columnist/Analyst/ Former Diplomat.
After obtaining my master’s degrees in Urdu and English literature from Punjab University, I started my career by teaching in a college. Thereafter, I had a stint in the diplomatic service of Pakistan. Finally I landed in journalism, an occupation that I am wedded to for over 20 years now.
I am a strong believer in a civil society and staunch opponent of exploitation in all forms.